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Looking for free version control software (windows)

polycounter lvl 15
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Lamont polycounter lvl 15
I am working on a project with a friend and wanted some kind of version control software for us to use (sync UPK and other nonsense).

Post links please :)

Don't wanna spin wheels on stuff that might work so if anyone has used something, post it. I'm asking you guys because I know you know the type of stuff we deal with (not massive amounts of word docs and spreadsheets).

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  • gamedev
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    gamedev polycounter lvl 12
    use the win client SVN w/ the tortoiseSVN gui and then pair that with unfuddle.com free project / repository services. Really a great combo.

    Tyler
  • Lee3dee
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    Lee3dee polycounter lvl 18
    i agree with SVN works great for a free alternative to perforce.
  • adam
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    adam polycounter lvl 20
  • oXYnary
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    oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
    Tortoise is just a svn client.

    http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/

    Here is subversion.

    http://subversion.tigris.org/


    Have used on all projects I have been on. No complaints. There are even plug ins that allow you to hook them into bug tracking php.
  • JasonLavoie
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    JasonLavoie polycounter lvl 18
    People keep on talking about this Dropbox... ques que ce?

    I've used Tortoise and it worked really well.
  • Lamont
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    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    Awesome guys thanks!! This will help A LOT. I just find it hard to do collaborative stuff without some kind of version control. Drives me nuts.

    **Edit** I just saw the vid for drop box, looks badass!!
  • Michael Knubben
    Dropbox just gives you a directory that it syncs between computers/Operating Systems (win, mac and linux!), and just generally works quite well.
  • rooster
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    rooster mod
    another svn user here
  • hobodactyl
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    hobodactyl polycounter lvl 18
    SVN (TortoiseSVN) works great, and I just set up DropBox, but I'm a little worried about using it wantonly b/c I've got limited U/L and D/L at home :/ (Since it automatically updates every time you make a change)
  • warby
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    warby polycounter lvl 18
    i have only ever used tortoise svn and i like it way better than the commercial stuff like perforce and alienbrain
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    I use TortoiseSVN at home for managing projects and keeping backups of stuff. My main projects folder is on my primary hard drive, the SVN repository is on my 2nd drive, so it's not only revision control but also backup.

    For free, you can't do much better. While Dropbox is cool for sharing stuff and managing very small projects, I don't like that it uploads every time the file is updated (maybe there's an option I've missed so that it'll only upload when you choose?), SVN is nice in that it lets you do as much as you want and "Commit" the changes whenever you feel like it (ie. at the end of a day's work, or after a major change).
  • Rob Galanakis
    I used to use Tortoise/Subversion at my last job. I've recently started using Mercurial (a Distributed Version Control System, slightly different than SVN, but for what you want to do probably not as good a choice). For my personal projects I use the repositories we set up at tech-artists.org, but not sure if your project is relevant to that.
  • thomasp
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    thomasp hero character
    i am about to set up perforce (free for home use/no more than 2 users sharing the setup) on my local box, having been told that subversion isn't exactly fast nor elegant when dealing with massive zbrush- or generally binary files.
    which triggers my question - anyone have experience with how quickly and big these repositories tend to grow? worst case - if i commit 10 or 20 versions of a 300 meg zbrush file a day, what kind of backup sizes will i have to deal with? assuming perforce is semi intelligent about only saving deltas, compressing data, etc.
    also - running the server and the client on one machine - is there noticeable slowdown when using these CMS?
  • Eric Chadwick
    Perforce can't store deltas for binary files, nor can it diff them. So it's going to store 10 to 20 versions per day, if that's how often you use Submit. And AFAIK you have to manually go in and delete old versions, because it will keep ALL of them.
  • thomasp
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    thomasp hero character
    hey that's beautiful, all of it. no joke. thanks, bearer of bad news :)
  • JasonLavoie
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    JasonLavoie polycounter lvl 18
    MoP wrote: »
    I don't like that it uploads every time the file is updated

    Ew...

    I still want to give Dropbox a try, sounds like its pretty straight forward. I think the only thing about tortoise that I don't like is I have to have a couple of secondary programs just to login and what not... it could be because the dude set it up weird, I think it has to do with the security setup or something.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Perforce can't store deltas for binary files, nor can it diff them. So it's going to store 10 to 20 versions per day, if that's how often you use Submit. And AFAIK you have to manually go in and delete old versions, because it will keep ALL of them.

    I'm pretty sure that's exactly how Subversion/TortoiseSVN handles it too.
  • Lamont
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    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    Yeah. Ended up with Tortoise, I like it a lot and we're going to set it up this weekend. I wasn't a big fan of P4 when I was using it.
  • hobodactyl
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    hobodactyl polycounter lvl 18
    Ew...

    I still want to give Dropbox a try, sounds like its pretty straight forward. I think the only thing about tortoise that I don't like is I have to have a couple of secondary programs just to login and what not... it could be because the dude set it up weird, I think it has to do with the security setup or something.

    You have to have secondary programs to login? Sounds really weird, at home and work I just save my login credentials through TortoiseSVN and from then on out I just do updates and commits whenever, it's pretty straightforward.

    I have to say I loved how easy dropbox was to set up and use, but not having the option to choose when to upload made me uninstall it (I'm in Canada with bandwidth capping :()
  • Flynny
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    Flynny polycounter lvl 9
    Svn isnt all that bad for free! Just why the bloody hell they decided it was better to delete stuff and re-add on the server (losing the history) everytime you rename a file/folder il never know..

    Also, i feel so sorry for new staff that join at the end of a project ;D jesus, free tea rounds for the entire studio for the following week, gutted ;P
  • EarthQuake
    I've been thinking about setting SVN up here at home for backup, on an older 32 bit machine that i'm not using. Problem is i'm running 64 bit xp here on my main system, and was wondering if anyone has had any problems getting setups like this to work? I couldn't manage to set up a network printer between xp32 and xp64 (though i can see it on the network), so that makes me a little worried about it.
  • Kizza
    I really want one that I can put on my web host. I've got huge hosting with GoDaddy that I don't use all that much, and I have limited internet quota (because Australia has dodgy quotas for internet).
    I've got 5 or 6 people working on one project, mostly Max/Maya and Photoshop files. So it'd be good to not have that downloading from my local PC and using up my internet.

    I'm a fan of Tortoise SVN, we've used it at work mostly, now moving to P4 for some reason. I'd prefer not to use that since it's not free for multi users.
  • Emil Mujanovic
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    Emil Mujanovic polycounter lvl 18
    SVN/TortoiseSVN over here as well.

    -caseyjones
  • Wahlgren
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    Wahlgren polycounter lvl 17
    Currently trying out Dropbox. Doesn´t seem all that bad to be honest. Took me 1 minute to get an account and everything working. Hell. Less even.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    EarthQuake wrote: »
    I've been thinking about setting SVN up here at home for backup, on an older 32 bit machine that i'm not using. Problem is i'm running 64 bit xp here on my main system, and was wondering if anyone has had any problems getting setups like this to work? I couldn't manage to set up a network printer between xp32 and xp64 (though i can see it on the network), so that makes me a little worried about it.

    Shouldn't be any troubles, we routinely mix 64-bit and 32-bit TSVN clients at work, no problems. Maybe you'll need to make sure the server install is 32-bit (no idea if there's even a 64-bit SVN server), but the client makes no difference, it all gets committed the same way as far as I can tell.
  • EarthQuake
    Ok great thanks man, yeah the server i plan on setting up is just an old p4 that i'm gonna throw a big HD into to back up my own stuff here at home.
  • sir-knight
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    sir-knight polycounter lvl 10
    is there a free visual type subversion setup for us artist types? we use svn here at work but I think for the artists, we can do better. I'd like to see some gui that can display past revisions of image files, including psds.
  • Pedro Amorim
    If anyone is gonna try out dropbox, use this link:


    https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTkzNzkzOQ


    It's my referral link. WHich means that if you register with this link, i get an extra 250Mb, and so do you. :)
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